Weekly Web Developer Q&A (5/6/2016)

If you sent me a question via email, Twitter, YouTube, etc this week… then look below because there’s a good chance I’m going to answer it.

Crazy1985 via YouTube asked:

“I am just going through the same thing and failed it, but I have learned that I need to learn more about specialising in something rather than being a Jack of all trades.“

Not 100% a question, but something I wanted to dive into. The single most important thing you can do to have more success as a freelancer is to stop being a “jack-of-all-trades” and be a specialist.

As the saying goes: “It’s better to do one thing well than ten things poorly.”

1000 million trillion percent true. All your effort get focused and yields much more results than it would spread out among ten different things.

If you’ve never heard me say this… if you’re struggling with freelancing, this is the thing to go change right now.

Edward via YouTube asked:

“Hello I am on my way out of the Army for medical reasons but I am going to school for web design and development any advise on what I need to learn first that would help me freelance while still going to school.“

That’s my definitive answer to the “what should I learn first” question.

Thing is, it really goes back to the first question. There’s 1000 things you couldlearn… but only a handful that are necessary for the niche you go into. So, what you should learn first is what is absolutely necessary for you to deliver on projects for clients. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Dave via YouTube asked:

“Hi John! So, I’m totally new to the world of PHP, Tables, Coding, etc. At this point, I am totally lost in this world, but starting to make sense of it all. I was wondering what a config.php file is, and is there a video that explains how to use these different types of files? Thanks so much!“

It can be anything really.

It’s just a file where you put application data you’ll likely use in multiple places in your code… across files and classes etc. Then you can easily include and use that data. Database credentials are the common one you see but it could be anything.

(Keep in mind, I might not respond to these directly in those places because I collect them up for this Q&A. Also Patreon supporters get priority access so if you want to make sure you get your question answered, consider becoming a supporting listener.)